In the end, that black cloud that has hung over the Earthquakes all season simply was too hard to escape.

The Quakes' year ended starkly on Saturday night in Kansas City when they fell 3-0 and lost their MLS Western Conference semifinal series to the Wizards 3-2 on aggregate goals.

The defeat really was part of a larger pattern of frustration and uncertainly that had affected the team's players, coaches and staff all season.

From the start to the end of the 2004 season, the Quakes were worried about their future.

Would they remain in San Jose or the Bay Area, or have to uproot their families and move to some place like Texas? Would they have a new owner? Would they even have a next season, anywhere?

Those questions all remain very much unresolved. And they continue to dwarf any discussion of what happened in 2004.

As coach Dominic Kinnear said Monday, everything pertaining to the team this season seemed to end with the thought, "Oh, by the way, we may not be here next year."

Combining that with numerous injuries and player call-ups to the U.S. and Canadian national teams, it's probably no surprise that the defending MLS champion Quakes didn't advance past the West semifinals.

"What bit us hard all season was our inconsistency," Kinnear said. "At times, we looked like the best team in the league by far, and while I never thought we were one of the worst teams, we never could really maintain consistency."

That was evident in the series against the Wizards in which the Quakes took a 2-0 lead after the first game and then promptly lost by three goals in the second game, one of them an extremely costly "own" goal by forward Brian Ching that put the Wizards ahead 2-0.

"The ending of that game probably was our worst of the season," Kinnear said. "The way it happened was bitter."

Kinnear said he has no idea, at the moment, what is in store for the team next season.

"It's just so hard for me to comment when I don't know the situation," he said. "For me to offer up any thoughts right now on what the team needs would be unfair to the players."

Adding to the general uncertainty is the unresolved status of the Quakes' star player, forward Landon Donovan, who might leave in January to play for the German club team, Bayer Leverkusen, which has owned his rights since 1999 but has been sharing them with MLS.

Donovan has said it's "50-50" whether he'll stay or go to Germany, but MLS so far has not made a move to try to purchase his contract from Bayer Leverkusen. One thing that might keep him in California is that his girlfriend, actress Bianca Kajlich, lives and works in Los Angeles.

The fate of other, older players such as defenders Jeff Agoos and the often-injured Troy Dayak also is in doubt.

Despite the distinctly up-and-down season, and all the things swirling around the players, Kinnear said team unity wasn't a problem.

"As a group, they never fought in practice or pointed fingers in the locker room," he said. "I have to give them full credit for sticking together."

The question is: Will they be sticking together for 2005? And if so, where and for whom?